Freedom Rider: Black America Stands Down for the Obamas

The Democrats definitely won the propaganda war between the two conventions but that doesn’t mean that black people won anything.” How could they, since African Americans have asked for nothing but that a Black family get to live in the White House? “For the first time in their history, black Americans have consciously and directly advocated being ignored.”

Freedom Rider: Black America Stands Down for the Obamas

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The only difference between Michelle Obama and Ann Romney’s speeches was in the quality of delivery and fashion sense.”

The recent Democratic National Convention was a demonstration of marketing at its worst, that is to say, at its greatest level of effectiveness. It was also an awful celebration of white washed history, dubious assertions and Orwellian levels of propaganda.

The best example of foolishness masquerading as substance was the overwrought reaction to first lady Michelle Obama’s speech. She gave what has become a traditional address asking voters to support the candidate because his wife tells funny stories about him which will make voters determined to vote for the good husband/dad/one time poor student who loves his country. The only difference between Michelle Obama and Ann Romney’s speeches was in the quality of delivery and fashion sense. Apparently there is still nothing like a beautiful woman in the right dress to make otherwise intelligent people lose their common sense.

Barack Obama and the first lady made the case for retrograde politics and quasi-fascist doctrines. Michelle Obama extolled the virtues of some strange and amorphous quality which she described as “the American spirit.” This spirit isn’t good for very much because apparently it inspired teachers in a bankrupt school district to work without pay.

If Mrs. Obama hadn’t looked so stunning and made such a wonderful impression, someone might have asked what can possibly be good about working without pay. That is called slavery and it is nothing that should be seen in a positive light. Teachers in a bankrupt school district ought to stop working and fight against the forces which would take money away from public education. But that is not the language that Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats want to express at this juncture in history.

“Michelle Obama extolled the virtues of some strange and amorphous quality which she described as ‘the American spirit.’”

Instead we heard about how the United States is the greatest country in the world, and that it is considered great in large part because of the violence it perpetrates against people in the rest of the planet. The first lady was introduced by a woman who has four children in the active duty military. That choice spoke volumes about the Democrats and their awful and ultimately successful plan to out maneuver the Republicans as the party of proud imperialists.

It was difficult to keep track of how many speakers boasted of the assassination of Osama bin Laden. His name came up so often that if his ghost had appeared at the podium it would not have been shocking. The Democrats were not content to pound their chests over the extra judicial killing of a one time American ally, but the Mom-In-Chief, as she called herself told Americans that at least one blinded Iraq vets is so proud of his actions that he doesn’t really mind being maimed. Michaell Obama said that one of these “wounded warriors” told her, “I’d give my eyes 100 times again to have the chance to do what I have done and what I can still do.” It isn’t clear what that really means, but the effect is to make the listener happy that some other poor slob lost his eyesight is some far away part of the world. We ought to be horrified by war and our country’s role in advancing war at such an alarming rate. We should be horrified about what our country has done to Iraqis and about the suffering of Americans sent to do the dirty work. Instead we are told not to worry so much because the wounded are keeping a stiff upper lip when they talk to Mrs. Obama.

It was all so very sad to behold. Black Americans, once the most progressive group in the country, are so ecstatic that Barack and Michelle Obama live in the family quarters of the white house that they didn’t mind being left off the stage. Some black elected officials spoke, but for the second convention in a row, there was not one black person deemed worthy of being among the “real people” speaking in prime time that the Democrats endlessly brag about.

“The Mom-In-Chief told Americans that at least one blinded Iraq vets is so proud of his actions that he doesn’t really mind being maimed.”

Ordinary white people went to the podium to proclaim their pride in being autoworkers or their thanks for the Affordable Care Act saving their life, or for Planned Parenthood or for a government which scoops up all of their children into the killing machine. Some of them told viewers how Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital stole their jobs. Surely there are black people who lost their jobs because of Bain, but they were not allowed anywhere near the stage.

The age-old dilemma is alive and well between black Americans and the Obamas. Getting the support of white people generally means distancing oneself from black people. For the first time in their history, black Americans have consciously and directly advocated being ignored. “He can’t win if he does anything for us,” many people will astutely observe, but the conclusion is anything but astute.

Black Americans have made the worst political deal in world history and now have nothing to show for it but a black woman in a lovely dress getting applause. The Democrats definitely won the propaganda war between the two conventions but that doesn’t mean that black people won anything. We won the right to subjugate ourselves for the second time for a still dubious reason. The self-abnegation and happy willingness to take a back seat for the sake of the happiness engendered by Obama’s presence as POTUS is very shameful and hopefully not to be repeated again. If the reaction to Obama would take place with any other black president, let us hope that Obama is not just the first black president, but the last one as well.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com.Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Look at the pathetic images of these dolts, acting as if they just got touched by the Holy Spirit, when they are in fact getting crapped upon by the Dimocrats and Obama. This picture says a lot about what's wrong with organized religion, but I digress. The "enraptured" idiots have gotten poorer, lost more wealth under Obama than they have even under Bush. "But the Lord said Rise Up!" LOL

Michael E. Dyson and the rest of the dipshits extolling Obama's virtues..., the Steve Harveys, the Al Sharptons and the poverty pimp faction seem to have forgotten a salient truth that we as people of color held closely for the past 400+ years.

The job of the President of the United States, regardless of sexual orientation or pigmentation of skin, is to perpetuate US global (full spectrum) dominance and as a by-product, Anglo/Euro-Centric supremacy. MLK called the US the"Greatest purveyor of violence" in the world. Has that changed? Interesting how they murdered Col. Quaddafi, but US and European War criminals are revered.

400+ years of historical comprehension gone in 60 seconds, thanks to the one who is "Heaven Sent." Black folks have been so traumatized and hypnotized and sold out by their so-called leaders that they don't know who the f***k they are anymore. Consequently they gleefully sign their own death warrant.

I don't even try to talk to these ignorant ass clowns anymore because its useless. For example, I bet any Negro in America $10,000 that Obama and the Dimocrats will cut Social Security and Medicare within 18 months if he's relected and yet, when it happens they will continue to defend Obama as they sit ass-out enduring greater hardships.

We don't need to march against the Klan anymore, we need to march against the pathetic Black Mis-Leadership class that is of greater disservice than the KKK.

I rarely agree with Nixakliel on anything. However, I second his greeting and his welcome.

Sadly, blacks have no monopoly on inept,lying,scumbag politicians. The Clintons are vile pieces of work. And world-wide, look at what the poor Italians, Brits, Spanish, and French have had to deal with. Don't even get me started on Africa or South America. Or Mexico.

Pobre de Mexico.Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos. Poor Mexico. So far from God and so close to the United States.

Im so glad that this is being reported on . There is way too much Obama worship going on in the black community. Its as if nothing else matters, as long as Obama is elected.. No cognitive thinking behind the vote or what it means . The only thing being pushed is FEAR of a Romney Presidency... or mindless adulation for Obama..

The 'Anglo-Elite' have compiled and continue to create many tricks and treats for the (obviously) unsuspecting populace here and abroad! It is difficult for most people to sort things out when their lives have been filled with so much distorted fluff.

It appears to me that the "elite" use "surrogates" to hide behind and protect themselves, as they pillage and commit genocide around the world. Presidents, dictators, kings, and other high officials are not the 'actual' people who manipulate everything and exact outrageous wealth from nations while leaving the populations suffering abject poverty, and lack of freedom, education, health, and ecological welfare.

It appears to me that these surrogates will do whatever they are told to do. In this 'grand-scale con', we are led to believe that these flunkies and cohorts for the elite are trying to work in our best interest even while they continue to exact terror on us in every conceivable category! The result is that many are caused to be confused by lies, deception, and secrets, and we are left to fight for things they have already done to us and taken from us, and things they continue to impose and inflict on us in the most devious ways.

A "vote" for anyone is more-than-likely 'fake' and unnecessary, because the elite will do as they wish, with whomever they wish. We are left to believe in a system that is not at all what it seems, but the elite put on such a fantastic congame-show, that most of us are left believing the unbelievable, and literally caught up in a suspension of disbelief.

It is ludicrous to believe that a "black" vote would count after they tried so hard to deny us the ability, by leveling atrocious beatings and murders! It would be smart to understand that they've created new ways to circumvent 'any' vote they please!

We are deluded to "vote" for 'their' surrogate Mr. Obama when they chose him to serve their purposes, and his representation of them makes their abuses of us much easier than most can imagine!

Any president (or candidate for president) is nothing but a front man for a faction of the billionaire ruling elite, most (but not all) of which does in fact happen to be of Anglo-Saxon descent. Really there seem to be two large factions within the elite which differ with each other mainly in the manner in which we the average non-wealthy people, black and white and latino and Asian and whatever, are to be exploited by their one-sided capitalist social order.

There is the "let them starve" faction, represented by the Republicans, nakedly pro-bourgeoisie, undisguised in their contempt for everyone not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, very short-term in their mindset and largely unconcerned about the middle- and long-term consequences. Their philosophy is "The elite has all the power and money and the average person (at this point) has little to no leverage so let's take advantage of this situation and exploit the hell out of them, really milk this capitalist cow for all it's worth and if the slaves get restless we'll beef up the size of the military and we'll further militarize the police departments to keep them in check until even our gated communities are untenable and we have to flee to the Caymans with our ill-gotten wealth." If they think that far ahead even.

Democrats represent the other faction of the elite, the "feed them crumbs" faction. This bunch of elitists says "Look, we want to keep being able to exploit these slaves for as long as possible so our best bet is to give them a few crumbs here and there, just barely enough to keep them alive and give them something to worry about losing if they revolt. Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If the masses get too fed up with being exploited they're going to overthrow the capitalist social order."

But as we can see over the last couple of decades even this minor distinction between the two corporate-owned parties is getting less and less pronounced as the Dems steadily slide more and more to the right. Obama is an extraordinarily effective tool for the continuing marginalization of progressive ideals from within and is basically the new, friendlier face on the same old imperialism. Voting for this or that puppet of the bourgeoisie is not a solution.

I must stick to my inference that it is all an elaborate game where we are made to believe that two opposing sides are laboring for the good of the "American Dream". The joke is clearly on us, and people like Obama and Romney play their roles well. This same joke is played on more than half the nations around the world by these same 'king-like' psychopaths, where the people are led to believe that they have a soverign nation and their "leaders" make decisions that are not "neo-colonially" influenced by these "elite" and their cohorts. Little do the people know, that their "leaders" live and die according to the whelms and wishes of these long term sociopaths. We are watching the chess games being played all over the world as these 'tyrants' determine which leader stays and how, or which leader goes and how. And which people suffer genocide and how, and/or which people settle back into a poverty stricken social structure pillaged by these Anglo-elite and their Jewish, etc, cohorts. Futhermore, because so many of us are unenlightened, we are guilty of helping these elite sociopaths at their tasks!

Astounding! You're accusing Jews of controlling the strings. Haven't we heard all this before? This reeks of anti-Semitism. Such beliefs do not suit Black Agenda Report and, frankly, are horrifying.

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